Suez
a town, on an angle of land Suez, and near the S. terminus of the Suez canal. It is walled on all sides but that toward the sea, has an indifferent SUEZ harbor, but a tolerably good quay. It is divided into an Arab quarter and a European quarter, the latter containing the buildings of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Co. Since the opening of the Suez canal, the town has greatly improved, and a railroad connects it with Cairo.
The Gulf of Suez is the W. and larger of the two branches into which the Red Sea divides toward its N. extremity, and washes the E. coasts of Egypt on the W. of the Sinaitic peninsula. Extreme length 200 miles, average width about 20 miles.
The Isthmus of Suez is a neck of land 72 miles wide at its narrowest part, extending from the Gulf of Suez on the S. to the Mediterranean on the N., and connecting the continents of Asia and Africa. The main interest attached to this region, in recent times, has been in the ship canal through the isthmus. Pop. (1897) 17,457.
SUEZ CANAL. It is certain that in ancient times a canal connecting, indirectly, the Mediterranean and Red seas did exist. At what period it was constructed is not so certain. Herodotus ascribes its projection and partial execution to Pharaoh Necho (about 600 B. c.); Aristotle, Strabo, and Pliny fix on the half mythical Sesostris as its originator. The honor of its completion is assigned by some to Darius, King of Persia; by others to the Ptolemies. It began about a mile and a half from Suez, and was carried in a N. W. direction, through a remarkable series of natural depressions, to Bubastis, on the Pelusiac or E. branch of the Nile. Its entire length was 92 miles (of which upward of 60 were cut by human labor), its width from 108 to 165 feet, and its depth 15 (Pliny says 30) feet. How long it continued to be used we cannot tell, but at length it became choked up with sand, was restored by Trajan early in the 2d century A. D., but again became unusable from the same cause, and so remained till the conquest of Egypt by Amrou, the Arab general of the Caliph Omar, who caused it to be re-opened, and named it the "Canal of the Prince of the Faithful," under which designation it continued to be employed for upward of a century, but was finally blocked up by the unconquerable sands, A. D. 767. In this condition it has ever since remained.
The attention of Europe was first turned to a canal here during the invasion of Egypt by Bonaparte, who caused the isthmus to be surveyed by a body of engineers, who arrived at the opinion that the level of the Mediterranean is 30 feet below that of the Red SUEZ CANAL Sea at Suez-an opinion which a subsequent survey proved to be erroneous. In 1847 France, England and Austria sent out a commission to measure accurately the levels of the two seas. The commissioners, M. Talabot, Robert Stephenson, and Signor Nigrelli, ascertained that instead of a difference of 30 feet the two seas have exactly the same mean level.
Another examination leading to similar results was made in 1853. Mr. Stephenson expressed himself very strongly against the feasibility of a canal and planned instead a railway railway from Cairo to Suez, which was opened ed (1858) and which now conveys overland the Indian and Australian mails. In 1854 a new experimenter appeared in the person of M. de Lesseps, a member of the French diplomatic service in Egypt, who (1856) obtained from the pasha the concession of building a ship canal from Tyneh (near the ruins of ancient Pelusium) to Suez. The peculiarity of M. de Lesseps's plan lay in this, that instead of following an oblique course and uniting his canal with the Nile, as the ancients had done, and as all modern engineers had thought of doing, he proposed to cut a canal right through the isthmus in a straight line to Suez. The colossal feature of M. de Lesseps's plan was the artificial harbors which he he proposed to execute at the two ends. In 1855 a new European commission was appointed, which reported that M. de Lesseps's scheme was practicable.
The result of the report was the formation of a joint-stock company, and the work was accordingly begun in 1860.
Starting from Port Said, the canal crosses about 20 miles of Menzaleh Lake.
Through this lagoon it is 112 yards wide at the surface, 26 yards at the bottom, and 26 feet deep. An artificial bank rises 15 feet on each side of this canal.
Beyond Menzaleh Lake heavier work begins. The distance thence to Abu Ballah Lake is 11 miles, with a height of ground above the level of the sea varying from 15 to 30 feet. Crossing the last named lake, there is another land distance of 11 miles to Timsah Lake cutting through ground to a depth varying from 30 to 70 or 80 feet, and then 3 miles further across this little lake itself. At El Guisr, or Girsch, occurs the deepest cutting in the whole line, 85 feet below the surface.
Ismailia, on Timsah Lake, is regarded as the central point of the canal. The freshwater canal extends from the Nile to Timsah Lake, and was constructed purposely to supply with water the population accumulating at various points on the line of the canal; but it is also used by sailing vessels. On Nov. 16, 1869, the Suez canal was opened in form, with a procession of English and foreign steam- SUEZ CANAL ers, in presence of the Khedive, the Empress of the French, the Emperor of French, the Emperor E of Austria, the Crown Prince of Prussia, and others. An attempt was made by the Turks during the World War (1914- 1918) to capture the canal by attacks at Ismailia and other points but they were defeated by the British forces. See EGYPT.